Category Archives: Labour

Labour’s stunning Scottish byelection win means there may be little need to bargain with the SNP

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A decade of SNP dominance will be swept away in Scotland if Labour can repeat its Rutherglen success at a general election

Thursday was a big day for Scottish Labour. Within minutes of the declaration that Labour had retaken Rutherglen and Hamilton West from the SNP, phones and social media lit up with triumphant messages from the winning party. And with good reason. This was the best result for Labour in a Scottish byelection since the second world war, and the worst for the SNP since the independence referendum upended Scottish politics.

Some caveats apply. This was one of the SNP’s most marginal seats, where Labour prevailed as recently as 2017. A cloud of scandal hung over a contest triggered after the sitting MP Margaret Ferrier was sanctioned for repeatedly breaking Covid rules. As Boris Johnson has learned, voters judge such behaviour harshly.

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Poll predicts landslide Labour election victory with 12 cabinet ministers losing their seats

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Dramatic findings point to Conservatives losing every red wall seat that they secured at the last election

Labour is currently on course to win a landslide victory on the scale of 1997, according to dramatic new modelling that points to the Conservatives losing every red wall seat secured at the last election.

The Tories could also lose more than 20 constituencies in its southern blue wall strongholds and achieve a record-low number of seats, according to a constituency-by-constituency model seen by the Observer. Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden, defence secretary Grant Shapps and leadership contender Penny Mordaunt are among those facing defeat. Some 12 cabinet ministers face being unseated unless Rishi Sunak can close Labour’s poll lead.

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Labour would oversee ‘biggest boost in affordable housing in a generation’

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Exclusive: Deputy leader and shadow housing secretary Angela Rayner says party would get tough on developers

The next Labour government will oversee the biggest boost in affordable housing in a generation by getting tough on developers and reforming planning rules, the party’s deputy leader has said.

Angela Rayner, also the shadow housing secretary, said she wanted to “increase, not decrease” the number of affordable new homes built every year, after it fell 12% last year.

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What Labour’s Rutherglen victory means for SNP and UK politics

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Party’s victory may point to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for Humza Yousaf

Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, had used the word “earthquake” last week to foreshadow Labour’s remarkable victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, where its winning margin of 30 percentage points exceeded even its predictions.

He did it cheekily, stealing one of the favourite lines often used by the former Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond when the nationalists were crushing Labour at repeated elections in the past. That theft of Salmond’s phrase has additional resonance. It points to a change in Scottish political alignments that spells danger for the SNP and its current leader, Humza Yousaf.

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‘Seismic night in Scotland’: Labour crushes SNP in Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection

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Michael Shanks wins contest Labour considered a crucial test of apparent turnaround of its fortunes in Scotland

Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection in an overwhelming victory over the SNP that his party leadership declared “seismic”, and a clear demonstration that Scotland could lead the way in delivering a Labour government at Westminster at the coming general election.

In a result that exceeded Scottish Labour expectation, Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of more than 20 percentage points.

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Teachers deride Starmer’s plan for supervised toothbrushing in schools

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Labour leader’s pledge for English primaries as part of a wider dental plan labelled ‘window dressing’ by union chief

School leaders have accused Labour of “window dressing” after Keir Starmer pledged to introduce supervised toothbrushing for young children in England’s primary schools.

While the policy has long been supported by the dentistry profession as a way of curbing decay, headteachers said it was not appropriate for their staff to check whether pupils had cleaned their teeth.

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Call for Labour government can transform Israel-Palestine policy

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Group says party ‘freed of the stain of antisemitism’ can promote two-state solution and reverse Tory apathy to Middle East

An incoming Labour government “freed of the stain of antisemitism” can seek an Israeli settlement freeze, promote a two-state solution and call out democratic backsliding not only by the Palestinian Authority, but also by the Israeli government, according to a pamphlet from Labour Friends of Israel.

The pamphlet is designed to mark a breakpoint from Labour’s debilitating debates about antisemitism, and promote a detailed policy solution to the Israel-Palestine question around which the majority of people in the party can gather.

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Rishi Sunak claims putting reducing inflation ahead of tax cuts Thatcherite and ‘deeply Conservative’ – UK politics live

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Prime minister says ‘the best tax cut we can give is to cut inflation’ after Michael Gove says taxes should be cut before general election

The BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is starting. As well as Rishi Sunak, Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is also being interviewed.

Q: Do you still think we’ve had enough of experts?

Economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable.

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Sunak claims ‘anti-motorist’ policies are against British values as he aims to limit 20mph speed zones – UK politics live

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PM preparing to curb English councils from introducing speed limits ahead of party conference

UK sanctions have been imposed on Russian officials involved in “sham” elections in annexed Ukrainian territory, the Foreign Office has announced.

Labour is currently on course to win a majority of 90 in a general election, according to polling published by the Times.

Rishi Sunak’s projected 196-seat tally would be the worst recorded by any Conservative leader since William Hague’s 166 in 2001. Labour’s 372 seats would give Sir Keir Starmer a comfortable working majority of 90, the party’s biggest since 2001.

Highlighting the Tories’ vulnerabilities in their traditional southern heartlands, the Liberal Democrats would be returned with 36 seats and 10.8 per cent of the vote, a marked improvement on the 15 seats they hold at present.

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Rishi Sunak refuses to endorse Suella Braverman’s claim multiculturalism has failed – UK politics live

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The PM instead praised the UK’s ‘fantastic multicultural democracy’, saying the nation has done an ‘incredible job of integrating people’

The former SNP minister Fergus Ewing has claimed his party no longer stands up for Scotland as he was suspended for a week after a disciplinary vote by fellow MSPs.

The sanction, which was backed by 48 votes to nine with four abstentions, came about after Ewing voted against the SNP-Green government in a no-confidence motion against the Scottish Green minister Lorna Slater.

The SNP I joined would never have asked me, or indeed any other elected politician, to choose between loyalty to party and loyalty to constituents …

It was never an ordinary political party because it was one which put Scotland first.

Fergus is a long standing MSP, he has been a minister, he understands the procedures here and what the outcome is of voting in the way that he did.

No, you are and you’re her direct line boss. So why didn’t you deal with that situation, as her boss?

The way it works for MPs is slightly different, in the sense that they themselves are elected by their constituents and we have a separate process for them stopping the job that they’re in. It is not my ability to do that, actually. Ultimately people elect their MPs regardless of who the prime minister is.

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Loose language leaves Labour accused of flip-flop on private schools

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Shadow ministers used ‘charitable status’ as shorthand for main goal of introducing tax changes

Has Labour flip-flopped on stripping private schools in England of their charitable status? Senior party figures from Keir Starmer down have certainly been guilty of using loose language, conflating such a move with their plan to apply VAT to private school fees and other tax breaks.

Starmer said in July last year: “When I say we are going to pay for kids to catch up at school, I also say it’ll be funded by removing private schools’ charitable status.”

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Tories urged to condemn Braverman for gay persecution comments on refugees

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UK home secretary in US to call for rewriting of UN asylum rules so they are ‘fit for the modern age’

A Labour MP has urged LGBTQ+ Conservatives to condemn Suella Braverman’s speech, in which she will say that Britain should not grant asylum to people who simply express a fear of persecution for being gay.

Ben Bradshaw, a former minister, made the call before a speech the home secretary is due to make in the US, where she will make her case for the rewriting of key international refugee rules so they are “fit for the modern age”.

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Why Tories are using cars as a political dividing line in the UK

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Attempt to show Labour as ‘anti-motorist’ at forefront of Conservative pre-election campaign

After a week in which Rishi Sunak rowed back on the UK’s climate commitments and delayed a ban on petrol cars, it seems he is making a pitch to drivers a key part of his pre-election campaign. Here are the wedge issues the Tories are expected to deploy against Labour to paint them as “anti-motorist”:

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Dividing lines: where do Sunak and Starmer stand on key UK issues?

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Party leaders start to reveal clearer positions on policy areas ranging from net zero to transgender rights

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have faced off against each other for the past 11 months as leaders of their parties, but the time has been marked by frustration within their own ranks that they are failing to create clear dividing lines with their opponents.

That situation has begun to change. The Conservative leader suddenly seems more eager to lay out his own ideological credentials – even if recent net zero announcements were quickly rushed out in response to leaks.

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Rishi Sunak delays some green targets and scraps others as he reveals net zero policy shift – as it happened

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PM says people to be given more time to switch gas boilers to heat pumps, and ban on sale of new petrol and diesel cars delayed

Climate scientists have expressed dismay at reports that Rishi Sunak is to row back on net zero commitments, arguing that this would be harmful not just environmentally, but economically too.

Prof Myles Allen, professor of geosystem sciences at Oxford University, said:

We haven’t heard the actual speech yet, but we all have to hope the PM is true to his word that he is looking for better ways to deliver net zero, not just slower ways. As we have found time and again in Britain, dithering costs money. The USA is seeing other countries’ faltering as an opportunity to get ahead. It will be sad indeed if we just see it as an opportunity to join the laggards.

It’s not pragmatic, it’s pathetic. This rolling back on emissions cuts for short-term political gain will undermine the transition to net zero and with it the future opportunities, prosperity and safety of the entire country.

Burning fossil fuels produces carbon dioxide which causes global warming which amplifies the consequences of extreme weather events, as we have so clearly seen this summer. Climate change will continue until we reach net zero globally, and we will then have to suffer the consequences of that warmer world for decades or more. It also matters how we reach net zero, not just when – delaying action means more emissions which means more severe consequences.

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Sunak planning to drop net zero policies in pre-election challenge to Labour

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Plans set to be announced on Friday could include delaying ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars

Rishi Sunak is planning to row back on some of the government’s net zero policies that impose a direct cost on consumers as the Conservatives attempt to create a dividing line with Labour before the next election.

The Guardian understands that the move, expected to be announced in a major speech this Friday, could include delaying a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and watering down the phasing out of gas boilers.

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Diane Abbott accuses Labour of ‘fraudulent’ inquiry into racism comments

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MP says investigation sparked by a letter to the Observer seen as arguing there is a hierarchy of racism is being run out of party HQ

Diane Abbott has accused Labour of leading a “fraudulent” investigation into her comments about racism that left her suspended from the party.

Abbott, who became the UK’s first black female MP in 1987, has claimed the party’s whips office is no longer conducting a formal investigation. Instead, she claims the internal inquiry is “now run entirely out of the Labour party HQ, which reports to Keir Starmer – and there is no investigation”.

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Almost 90% of voters – including 65% of Tories – say Britain needs fresh team of leaders, poll suggests – UK politics live

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Rishi Sunak’s government seen as less competent that Boris Johnson’s administration

The UK economy is set to witness the highest inflation rate of the world’s G7 advanced economies this year, according to new forecasts, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also increased its predicted average UK inflation rate for 2023 compared with its previous estimate.

Economists at the globally recognised organisation also reduced their UK growth forecast slightly for next year amid pressure from higher interest rates.

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Starmer wraps up foreign mini-tour with visit to Macron in Paris

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Talks between Labour leader and French president at Élysée described as ‘warm and engaging’

Keir Starmer has completed his international mini-tour by meeting Emmanuel Macron in Paris for symbolically significant if low-key talks that skirted around specifics of Brexit or migration policy.

After discussions in The Hague with EU law enforcement officials, and weekend meetings with Justin Trudeau and others in Montreal, the Labour leader held 45 minutes of one-to-one talks with the French president at the Élysée Palace.

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Labour will not say how many migrants it would accept in EU returns deal

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Keir Starmer dismisses Tory claims of plan to oversee 100,000 extra arrivals as ‘complete garbage’

Labour will not say how many more migrants it would accept under a returns deal with the EU if it comes to power, as senior party figures insist that they do not want to be bound by quotas.

Keir Starmer said this week that if he became prime minister, he would seek a deal with the EU to return some new arrivals to mainland Europe while allowing others to enter Britain.

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